Across the Universe
by infinite.regress17
Summary: River knows that there is a cost to loving the Doctor, and it's one she's always been willing to pay. But there are times when a girl needs a day – and a night, away from captivity. The Doctor takes River on a birthday trip with some of her favourite things: interesting people, music, books, and an elephant.
**Across the Universe**

 **Chapter 1: An Escaping Day.**

A claxon whooped as River Song wound her way along the corridor towards Airlock 11. She slipped the universal-molecular-rotator, a handy gadget for opening inconvenient doors, neatly in the pocket of her prison-issue jacket, and glanced one more time at the message on back of the blue post card. It said in a loopy hand:

"Airlock 11, soon as you like, dress WARMLY"

"Happy Birthday Honey"

She smiled and put the card back in her pocket. A young face she didn't recognise was guarding airlock 11, and he probably thought he'd pulled a plum job. He saw her coming and scrabbled for his radio. 'Commander Spears! It's Professor Song, sir. She's out of her cell!'

River grinned. It was an escaping day. 'Spears you old devil! You could have warned the poor love,' she said loudly enough for Spears to hear over the radio. It was a rite of passage: a newbie never forgot the first time they watched River Song break out.

'Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to return to your cell!' the guard said, his voice probably a full octave higher than he'd like.

'Ask away dear.' River sailed on past toward the airlock. It swished open and he stood open-mouthed then fumbled for his weapon. 'Oh for heaven's sake…' she took a quick look at his name badge, '…Peterson. Put it away, I'll be back.'

He was rooted to the spot, hand uselessly on his still-holstered blaster, unable to do anything but stare at her walking out in front of him. He rolled his eyes at the ceiling and flung his hands up in the air. 'My first bloody shift, and a prisoner, - a ruddy archaeologist – escapes!'

Peals of laughter and Spears' voice came over the radio. 'Welcome to the most secure containment facility in the universe son.'

Inside the airlock River pressed her nose against a small window onto empty blackness. The blackness wouldn't be empty – or black – for very long. On cue, a blue police box, complete with authentic signs and fittings, materialised silently outside. 'My old man's here,' she said and flicked the airlock open. The "old man" offered his hand through the blackness; she grasped it and stepped across the void. Here he was in his bow-tie and jacket, chin was still making an emphatic point but his eyes were twinkling shyly.

'Happy Birthday!' he said and slipped off to the other side of the console-room. 'I've got a birthday lined up that will knock your socks off!' He faced her across the console. 'So, how old are you now?' She wagged a finger. 'No, Doctor, wrong question. Amy told you, "don't mention the age thing."' He grabbed a pair of ice skates from the rail around the central dais and dangled them in front of her. 'Better question. How do you fancy ice skating?'

River studied his face. _I have a question too, when did you last see me?_ But she didn't get the chance to ask it because he span her around again. That was new, she was more used to spinning him one way or another. He thrust the ice skates at her and spun himself off around the console again tweaking dials and flipping levers as he went. An escaping day with ice skates. Things were getting interesting.

 **Chapter 2: On the Ice**

They stepped out of the TARDIS into winter. A wide frozen river stretched and curled into the distance, it's banks wide open flats of hardened mud. A great city, with high chimneys belching black smoke and grand buildings, was silhouetted in the skyline. The Doctor finished hanging their walking shoes around his neck, then wobbled toward the ice. River was already skating in expert circles.

'I told you to dress warmly!' he frowned at her in the beige prison issue uniform.

'Sometimes I wonder if you know me at all!' she looked up and down the frozen river and then into the city beyond the banks, and sniffed the air. 'Hmm…factories producing atmospheric pollution at an alarming rate, but the ozone layer's still fully intact. That looks like Saint Paul's cathedral. Earth, London.' She sniffed the air again. 'Late Georgian?'

'Very good. You'll make professor yet.'

River weighed up the solid river and the bare trees. This was a fashion opportunity: a day out of tedious prison clothes. 'Let's see, I think something long and stylish. Winter stripes!' she got a small device out of her pocket and held it above her head. The device did its techno-magic and shimmied her a new set of clothes. She got a compact mirror out of her pocket and sized up the outfit: a full length brown striped dress, a darling muff and a jaunty little hat. Perfect! No prison garb today.

A few minutes later she was gliding along the ice, puffing breaths into the air and then racing through them, feet swishing beneath the brown stripes. This is what freedom tastes like. Fresh air! Sometimes, cooped up in that cage, she hankered for days like this. Then she'd remember why she stayed there. Why it was worth it. Living your love life backwards could make you crazy if you're not careful. She looked across at him, wobbling brilliantly, the boots bouncing merrily against his chest. 'This is splendid fun!' she called.

He staggered along the ice, his breath rising in ragged gusts. 'Yes! Super fun, really, really super fun.' His arms whirled like windmills.

She skirted a patch of rushes poking from the ice and skidded to a stop in front of him. 'Really Doctor, a thousand years of space and time and you've never learned to skate?'

'I've been busy, had a lot of…busy things to do that didn't include falling on my backside into an icy puddle every five minutes.'

River offered her arm. 'Let's see what we can do about that,' she said, and they tottered off together. Twenty minutes later they came to a rather less wobbly stop at a bend in the river. 'You're a quick learner, my love.'

He straightened his bow-tie. 'When you got it…' he said, and then he teetered dangerously and re-grabbed her arm. River looked along the curve of the river bank and past the trees into the distance at milling people, and tents with flags waving in the breeze.

'When are we exactly then?'

'February 1814. Last great frost fair on the Thames.'

 **Chapter 3: An Elephant on the Thames**

The Doctor and River took off their ice skates and he tucked them away under a bush. 'We'll pick those up later,' he said, and guided her toward Blackfriars Bridge. An elephant stood swinging its trunk back and forth in a slow sad rhythm. Its breath billowed upwards through the air in time with the billowing chimney stacks beyond. A thick chain, firmly in the grasping hands of a swarthy dark-eyed man, tethered the elephant to London. 'Hello Mr Stebbings,' said the Doctor.

Stebbings doffed his hat toward River without a word. She went to make the elephant's acquaintance, and rubbed its cold ear. It was rather odd to find an elephant chained to a frozen river bank in London. She glanced at the Doctor, another soul a long way from home. Here's to the confined, lonely and displaced of the universe.

'Mr Stebbings was engaged by the city traders to prove to everyone the ice was strong enough to hold, well, an elephant,' the Doctor said, 'and he's agreed to one more trip across before he takes his friend here back to the circus.'

Stebbings shot a sideways glance at the Doctor. 'Never 'ad a lady want to ride the elephant before.' People gathered on Blackfriars Bridge, and some drifted down to the river bank and onto the ice get a better look. It seemed all of London was on the frozen Thames that morning

There was a commotion by the foot of the bridge, and a ragged boy of eight, maybe nine, hurtled pell-mell towards them scattering Londoners in his wake. 'Oi, wotch it, Thomas, I'll 'ave your guts for garters!' a lad shouted after the skinny boy. He was not much older than Thomas, but better dressed and probably a good deal warmer.

' 'prentices!' Thomas yelled back, ''fink 'cos you've got a trade yore better than the rest of us!'

Thomas tore on neatly side stepping a young soldier probably ten years his senior, in a blood red tunic with buttons still polished silver sharp, a medal pinned to his chest, and his lank sleeve pinned neatly beside that, hobbling gamely on toward the river bank. Thomas turned and doffed his cap, while still scrabbling backwards. 'Hey mister, how's that pig's arse Napoleon doing now?' he called.

'Almost done for, young fella!' the soldier shouted back with a salute.

Thomas ran on into the arms of a gentleman with a top hat and cane. He caught him sharply by the scruff and stopped him barrelling into a woman in a full-length embroidered green dress. She wrapped her over-gown around her as if just looking at his tattered trousers was enough to make her shiver. 'Really!' she exclaimed to her escort, who tapped Thomas solidly on the head with his cane. 'Watch where you are going, boy, I'll have the law on you!' Thomas yelped and flailed, but he was a seasoned escaper, and soon wiggled free.

He skidded to a halt in front of River and the Doctor. ''ere, mister Doctor,' he gasped, almost doubled up with his thin arms on his knees while he caught his breath. His face was red from running, but the arms that poked out from his under-sized cuffs were as pale as the snow. He looked up at River. 'Is this 'er?' The Doctor nodded and Thomas yanked his shoulder and whispered something in his ear. The Doctor passed him a small box, which he quickly stuffed in his pocket, and gave him an affectionate pat that sent him scooting off across the ice.

River laughed. Nothing surprised her anymore, ice skates and an elephant on the Thames, urchins with secrets; today just kept getting better. This really was living history, and she was going to make the most of every moment. She gave the elephant another rub behind the ear. She realised Top Hat and Green Dress were eyeing her.

'Rupert, Surely this…a Lady would never…' Green Dress trailed off.

River made sure she spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. 'Be patient dear, you'll get your turn!' She climbed up a pile of wooden boxes and swung herself onto the elephant's back. She re-arranged her skirts and grinned up at the people on the bridge, and offered a regal wave to the crowds gathering around the elephant.

Green Dress turned a greener shade of pale and said, 'Really!' She took her gentleman's arm and stepped delicately away across the ice.

Stebbings lead the elephant and a crowd of laughing and cheering followers onto the ice. Wafts of roast pig, beer and gin filled the air and raucous laughter burst from tents. There was even a printing press pounding away in one tent. 'Hang on a minute,' the Doctor called, and disappeared into the clanking gloom. Stebbings hauled the elephant to a halt. A gaggle young people gathered round, most hanging back warily, but one young woman with fine leather boots and wild brown hair stepped right up to the elephant. With wide eyes she ran her hand along its flank.

'I have never seen such a creature outside a book,' she said, looking up at River with a piercing stare, 'and I've never seen a woman quite like you.'

River looked hard at the young woman. There was something familiar about her, but she couldn't place her. 'Would you like to join me?' The young woman's eyes lit up.

'Very much.'

'What's your name?'

'Mary Wollstonecraft.' River frowned, the name was familiar. 'Mary, today's your lucky day.' She offered her hand and Mary grasped it without missing a beat. River called to Stebbings, 'Be a love and give my friend a hand up.'

He grunted. 'Right you are ma'am,' and cupped his hands for Mary to step on. With a hefty boost and a lot of tugging shescrambled on andsettled behind River.

Stebbings stood guard, eyed the crowd of children, and thwacked his cane noisily against his leg. A scraggy boy, emboldened by Mary's example, sidled up to the elephant. Stebbings barked, 'No free rides. Clear off wiv' yah.' He swiped the boy with his cane. He yelped then slunk back into the crowd rubbing his leg.

'Monster,' muttered Mary.

'There was no need for that.' River's stomached tightened. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was a bully. She turned away from Stebbings. A young man was staring down at them from bridge. 'Some one up there's taken a shine to one of us, and I doubt it's me,' she said to Mary.

Mary laughed. 'That's just Percy, one of father's hanger's on,' she said, 'claims to be madly in love with me.'

'Do you like him?'

Mary paused. 'He's one of those desperate poet types. Threatened to kill himself if I don't return his amour,' River turned to get a better look at this forthright and educated young woman who had such a penetrating eye. 'And there's already a _Mrs_ Shelly…' Mary said, raising her eyebrows.

River sputtered, 'That's the poet, Percy Shelly?'

'Yes, it's quite tragic,' Mary sighed wistfully, 'if only things were different…'

River said, 'Mary, if you love him, even a bit, don't let anything stop you.'

Mary squinted and pressed her lips together. 'Every other person in London advises me to keep away from him. There would be such a scandal, and anyway,' she looked across the ice into the distance, 'I want to travel and write about fantastical things,' she said.

River smiled. 'There's a price to pay for loving a great man,' Mary nodded and glanced up at Percy stalking back and forth across the bridge. He looked up at the sky and ran his fingers through his hair, and then stared down at them intensely. River grasped Mary's hand. 'I have a feeling you are going to be great too.'

The Doctor came out of the tent waving a book. 'Hello,' he said to Mary. Then he raised the cover of the book to show River. It was an honest-to-goodness first edition of "Frostonia: A History of the Frozen Thames." 'hot off the press! Signed for you by the printer…' he glanced at the inside page '…George Davies,' he said and slipped the book in his pocket with a grin. His eyes settled on Mary and he said to River, 'Are you going to introduce me to your friend?'

'Of course, Doctor, this is Mary, Mary, meet the Doctor.'

'Mary who?' the Doctor asked, looking up and squinting against the winter sun.

'Just Mary,' River said airily, then changed tack. 'I don't think I've had _this_ much fun on an elephant since Mark Anthony and I-'

'River!'

'Sorry Sweetie.' In the cosmic game of poker that was their relationship maybe he did hold the aces, but it was nice to tuck away a card or two now and again. Small victories keep you sane. They finished the ride in agreeable silence.

At the far bank first River, then Mary wobbled and slid their way down from the elephant and bounced into the Doctors arms. Mary was flushed with the widest grin River had seen for a long time. She disentangled herself from the Doctor and turned back to the elephant and ran her hand along its trunk. 'Thank you so very much,' she said, and then asked Stebbings, 'What's his name?'

'Her name's Nellie,' Stebbings said gruffly.

'Hmmm…' the Doctor touched the elephant's face, 'no it isn't. Her name is…"Harmony-of-the-Clear-Water."' Harmony lowered her head, and he paused and rubbed gently between her eyes. 'She's called that because…' he listened for a moment, turned back to River and Mary and said slowly, '…because she could always call her children to the best water-holes.' River watched him intently as he said, 'Her family are a very long way away.' He turned to Stebbings with a dark look, 'I expect you, Mr Stebbings, to be _much_ nicer to Harmony from now on.'

'Yes sir, right you are sir.' Stebbings doffed his hat deeply.

Mary shook Rivers arm and whispered, 'What was that about?'

'He speaks elephant,' River said, as if that explained everything. She laughed at Mary's bemused expression. 'The universe is a very strange place.'

Mary nodded thoughtfully. 'I wonder what would we discover if we were only brave enough.'

'Oh I think, you're brave enough, Mary.' River glanced up at the bridge, and the restless love-struck poet, caught in the sphere of his personal sorrow, still staring down at Mary. River took Mary's hand and nodded up to Percy, 'There's a beautiful soul up there. I think you'll be amazing together no matter what the cost.'

Mary smiled and squeezed River's hand and looked across at the Doctor. 'And what is the price of loving this one?' she asked.

River laughed. 'Monstrous!'

Mary shot her a bemused look, and then turned to Blackfriars Bridge and waved up at Percy. He clutched his chest theatrically and gave a small bow. Mary said, 'Thank you River,' and scrambled up the bank towards the bridge.

 **Chapter 4: 'I just called to say…'**

River said goodbye to Harmony and followed the Doctor into the gloom under the arches of Blackfriars Bridge. As her eyes adjusted to the low light she saw Thomas standing in front of a dark figure sat incongruently on a modern chair. He wore a thick fur coat and dark sunglasses. 'I hope you've been looking after my friend,' the Doctor said.

Thomas nodded vigorously. 'Corse I 'ave mister Doctor, 'e's bin teaching me to play the 'armonica.' He put the instrument to his mouth, and made a pretty good rendition of "London Bridge is falling down."

River nodded toward Thomas and glanced at the Doctor. 'Not bad.'

The man in the chair said, 'This boy's got a good ear, Doctor. He's a quick learner and he can sing too.' Then he asked in a low voice, 'Is she here?'

'River Song, I would like you to meet one of the most extraordinary musicians of 21st Century Earth, Mr Stevie Wonder.'

What kind of history undergraduate, formerly known as Melody Pond, would she have been if she hadn't taken a unit on the History of 21st Century Music? She pumped his hand enthusiastically. 'It's an honour.'

Stevie kept hold of her hand and snaked his other toward the Doctor's lapels and pulled him down. 'Now, you wouldn't have tricked a blind guy into a time machine so he could serenade a lady on a frozen lake in old London now would you?'

The Doctor scratched his face, and said, 'No! No, I wouldn't do that, because that would be disrespectful and cheap and…' he tailed off. Rule number one: the Doctor tells lies.

Stevie laughed heartily. 'I can't see Doctor, but I'm all ears.' His grinning seemed to mean no hard feelings. He beckoned Thomas to him and said, 'Change of plan Tommy. If you're up for it we'll do the other song.'

Thomas pulled himself up to his full height. 'I can do it!' he said, and passed the harmonica to Stevie.

'Now when people want me to romance them they usually ask for a particular song. This one's trickier for Tommy, but I think this fits you better.' He began to play and Thomas watched him carefully and then started to sing in a high sweet voice along with the harmonica.

"Words flow like endless rain into a paper cup

Slither while they pass and slip across the universe

Pools of sorrow, waves of joy possessing and caressing me

Nothing's gonna change my world"

Thomas didn't stumble once over the long words, and River snatched a breath. She held onto the Doctor's arm. She could fall right into that pool of sorrow.

"Images of broken light dance before me like a million eyes

Thoughts meander like a restless wind and tumble blindly

Love shines on around me like a million suns

and calls me on and on across the universe

Nothing's gonna change my world."

She swallowed hard, because she, Doctor River Song, gun-toting, time-hopping convicted murderer and escaped felon, was most surely not going to cry standing under a bridge on a frozen river with an angelic waif singing her life like it was the last thing he would ever do. No sir; no tears on the Thames today.

 **Chapter 5: A Spin around the Fair**

River and the Doctor went hunting for food and returned with slices of roast pig wrapped in paper for Stevie and Thomas, and a beer for Stevie. Thomas' eyes widened and River could almost see his mouth watering. He grabbed the meat and crammed it into his mouth as if he were afraid they might try to take it back. She put a hand on his sharp little shoulder and even in the gloom it was impossible to miss how his tatty clothes hung off him. He grinned happily up at her with pork juice running down his chin. The past really was another country.

Stevie took a swig of beer and then spat and spluttered, 'Oh my god, that's one foul brew!' Quick as anything Thomas grabbed the beer from him and gulped it down greedily. There were precious calories in that for a street boy who'd had no breakfast and would be lucky if he saw dinner.

'You two O.K if we take a spin round the fair?' the Doctor asked Stevie and Thomas.

Stevie grinned. 'Sure. Me and Tommy got some business.' He handed the harmonica out to Thomas. Thomas slurped the last of the beer from the tankard and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and took shining silver harmonica in his small hands and looked down at is as if it was a thing of wonder.

River slipped her arm through the Doctor's and they headed back to the centre of the ice. 'You haven't told me when you saw me last. Usually we sync diaries, but'-

'We had important things to think about. This is the last of the great frost fairs you know,' he waved his hand up and down the river, 'the Thames will never freeze solid again. Partly because of the change in climate, and partly when the new bridge'-

'Madam Rosalee see's all!' A towering man, wearing a battered round hat and boasting a voice to match his frame, pronounced to the Thames, 'Madam Rosalee sees beyond the veil into the mists of time!' He set course directly toward them. River had noticed him earlier, his job seemed to be dredging the crowds and scooping the unwary off into Madam Rosalee's tent. He doffed his pork-pie hat and blocked their way. His beady eyes darted back and forth between them, clearly sizing the both of them up.

'We don't need spoilers, thanks all the same,' said the Doctor, trying to guide River around the man's bulky frame. This catcher was not so easily put off.

'Wouldn't you like to know what the future holds?' he said to River. She stole a look at the Doctor, still tugging her arm and trying to wheedle away.

This could be interesting. 'Sounds fascinating!' she said, 'Let's give this a whirl.'

The Doctor hissed, 'You know this is a load of fairground…'

'But sweetie, it's my birthday!'

'A birthday treat for the lady. How can a gentleman refuse?' Without waiting for a reply he swept River into the tent leaving the Doctor to grumble along in her wake. 'Please wait here,' he said 'Madam Rosalee speaks with the spirits. I must call her back.' He disappeared behind a curtain and River used a finger to pull it back a crack and peek through. She strained to listen. Madam Rosalee, complete with headscarf and gypsy bangles, sat feet up on the table swigging from a dirty cup. The catcher swiped her feet off the table, took the drink away, and hissed: 'Ma! I've got a right pair out there. She's the one who rode elephant. He looks like a professor. Mother and son probably. Not from around here.' Madam Rosalee sat up and River let the curtain slip back in place. This should be fun.

'Madam Rosalee is ready,' said the catcher, holding the curtain back for the Doctor and River, and guiding them towards two chairs. Wafts of gin and wax lingered in the air and an almost burned out candle cast dancing shadows through the gloom. Madam Rosalee flashed a crooked black-toothed smile at them and thrust an upturned hand across the table. Her eyes were dark and black-ringed, and spoke a life-time of gin and sorrow. She looked directly at the Doctor and then drew her breath in. She snatched her hand back, covered her face, and then wound her fingers together in knots.

'I be 'feard the spirits not be with me today,' she said, in a cracked voice.

The catcher coughed from behind her chair and put his hands on her shoulders. 'Madam Rosalee, the spirits will come.'

'I be just a weak old woman…' she said with an unsteady wave of her leathery hands that clinked and clashed her bangles together against her arm. River thought she looked like a picture she'd once seen of a racoon cornered part way through a dustbin raid trying to work out which way to run.

The catcher persisted, 'You are stronger than you think. We don't want to disappoint these good people,' and gave her shoulders a squeeze.

Madam Rosalee winced then nodded. 'No…yes…you's be right, dearie,' she said, patting the catcher's hand. He lingered a moment then drifted away.

The temperature in the tent dropped further, and the candle flickered wildly. Madam Rosalee closed her eyes and dipped her head to the table. When she looked up again and opened her eyes they were frosted glass. The homely tone was gone. 'Sometimes the mists close in for good reason,' she said, looking directly at River. 'Sometimes knowing is painful.'

The Doctor shifted next to her and cleared his throat. She put a staying hand on his knee. Maybe this woman was a bit more than a fairground fortune teller. 'Please, do go on.'

Rosalee stared through her for a long time and River found herself unaccountably holding her breath. Sounds from the fair filtered in, people laughing and singing, dogs barking. Rosalee spoke in a hushed voice, 'I see a stolen child born in battle. Servant of silence,' the candle cast a flickering shadow on her glassy eyes and she traced her finger back and forth in the air in time with her words. 'The waiting ones, the soldier-nurse and the growing-up one. Patient…angry, always waiting.'

'Rory and Amy,' the Doctor whispered, and at the same time River said under her breath, 'Dad…Mother.'

Then Rosalee's finger tracked to the Doctor and she leaned toward him intently, stabbed her finger at him, and hissed: 'Thief!' She grasped River's hand and said, 'He has a sliver of ice in his heart.' The old woman was breathing fast now, her hands shook in River's and she took them back and wrung them together, and then leant back in her chair. Her voice became a rhythmic chant:

'The silence, singing towers, shadows, sacrifice…'

Rosalee stared hard at the Doctor for a long time. The candle flickered in her eyes all the time as she chanted.

'The silence, singing towers, shadows, sacrifice…'

The Doctor looked at River then back to the fortune-teller with wide eyes but he didn't speak. Then Rosalee said a single word before she slumped back into her chair:

'Saved.'

The silence stretched on past that word. The Doctor and River stared at one another in silence. Then the curtain rustled behind them and the catcher came back in and folded his arms. Rosalee jerked up from her slump, and the homely tone was back. 'Well dearies, shall I be telling your fortunes?' She turned to River, 'Don't you want to know how your clever son will make his dear mother proud?' The Doctor spluttered and River choked in unison. Madam Rosalee and the catcher looked on in bemused silence:

'I'm not her son!' 'I'm _not_ his mother!'

The Doctor jumped up and spilled his chair over rushing to get out of the tent. He was half way across the ice before River caught him and yanked his sleeve. 'What did all that mean?' He strode on and River had to trot to keep up, thinking _Rosalee's right he is a thief. He started off with a stolen TARDIS, and he steals people from their lives without thinking about it twice._ He'd stolen her heart and disappeared with it across the universe. She'd have plenty of time to stew on it when she was back in the Stormcage, that three-step cell with the small washroom and the big desk. She asked again, ' The silence, the singing towers, the shadows, sacrifice, saved? What does it mean?'

'I think we both know about The Silence.' He screwed his eyes and shuddered very slightly, as if the thought of The Silence made his skin crawl.

'Yes, yes, but the rest of it, the singing towers, the shadows, sacrifice…'

'I don't know!' He went for the full hand-wring now and stomped off across the ice.

'Tell me!'

'I honestly don't know about the signing towers…and the rest…I'm sorry. Sp-'

'Don't say it, just…don't say it.' Spoilers. It was a flirtation sometimes, a joke, but right now it didn't seem funny at all. He was holding something back. Something more than usual. She could see it in his eyes and the face-scratching and hand-wringing. 'When did you see me last?' she demanded.

That face-scratching picked up a notch. 'I'm not sure. I've been busy. There's been a lot going on.' He stalked back towards Blackfriars Bridge.

 **Chapter 6: Back in Time for Roll-Call**

As River and the Doctor got closer to the arch under Blackfriars Bridge where they had left Thomas and Stevie, they heard two voices, a treble and a tenor singing scales, one velvet smooth and the other soaring, rising together from doh, through ray, me, far, so, up to la, te, do, and back again.

'Don't suck in your stomach, Tommy, and relax your arms,' Stevie said to Thomas. River and the Doctor picked their way through the gloom to the impromptu studio. Stevie sat in the anachronistic chair, with Thomas directly in front of him: a pale scrap of a boy and bulky blind black man, 200 hundred years and worlds apart, yet eye to eye. Stevie pressed the harmonica into Thomas' hand.

'It's yours Tommy, you keep that close, and you keep practicing like I showed you.'

Thomas looked at the harmonica. 'Wot, really mister? I can keep it?'

Stevie's voice was stripped of its usual velvet and wound into a choke as he said, 'Sure, Tommy, it's yours.'

The Doctor looked at Thomas, whose eyes glinted in the darkness, and crouched down. 'You know what you have there, Thomas?' He gave the harmonica three light taps. 'What you have there is a trade.'

The Doctor was scrambling under the bushes where he had left the ice skates while Stevie and River waited.

'Someone's nicked them!'

River laughed. 'There are thieves everywhere, my love.' The universe is chock full of people who run off with things that don't belong to them.

He stood up and stuck his hands in his pockets, then scuffed off along the pathway. 'I liked those skates. I was getting pretty good at it too…' River offered Stevie her arm, and they began the walk back to the TARDIS.

'What will happen to Tommy?' Stevie asked River. That was the thing, the Doctor dropped into people's lives and dropped out again, left a dent for better or for worse, and rarely stayed around long enough to see the consequences. A few he paused with, ran back to, ran away with, for a while. Like her parents. There had been others before: no doubt there would be others again, every one of them touched by his special brand of magic. But they were mayflies next to him, fluttering briefly and then falling to the wind.

'River?' Stevie shook her arm gently. 'Where'd you go?'

'Sorry. I don't know what will happen to Tommy, but he has a fighting chance now, thanks to you.'

Stevie nodded. 'That's not the type of thing a guy gets to do every day. I'm glad I met you both.' He stopped walking. 'What's that?' He cocked his head to one side. 'Sounds like something getting whacked.' River looked across to the other side of the Thames, and there was Stebbings, trying to drag Harmony along by the chain around her leg. She threw her trunk up in the air and stamped her foot. Stebbings shouted and raised his arm and the whipped down on Harmony's shoulder with a sickening thwack. Stevie winced and River sucked in a deep breath.

'Oi!' yelled the Doctor. Harmony-of-the-Clear-Water turned her head towards the sound. Heat flushed through River and her hands twitched. Alone, far from home, confined, chained, and beaten? Not today, not tomorrow, not ever again, Stebbings raised his hand in front of Harmony's head and as the cane crashed towards her River blasted him clean across the river bank and into the mud.

The Doctor turned to her with his mouth hanging open. 'River! Where did you even keep that?'

'In my muff,' she said as if it would be extraordinary to keep a 52nd Century laser-blaster anywhere else.

He sighed. 'I really shouldn't like that. But I do, I really do.'

 **Twenty minutes later…**

A cacophony of wheezing and trumpeting filled the TARDIS. River steadied herself on the side of the console with one hand and punched in numbers on a key-pad to re-calibrate the helmic regulator with the other. 'Have you done this before?' she shouted at the Doctor above the din.

He was frantically rewiring something under the glass floor. 'Materialise around an elephant and use the zero room as a temporary holding-pen? Yeah! Lots of times! Piece of cake!' he shouted back.

'How's Stevie's going to explain all that to his backing singers?' she yelled down to the Doctor. He had virtually shoved the poor man out of the door and into his recording studio amid the chaos of alarms and complaining time-tech that had inexplicably took exception to the Big Apple.

'I didn't know the temporal interference in New York would be that bad. I would have taken Harmony home first if I did.' The time rota ground and shrieked its way up and down, and the TARDIS shuddered and jerked herself free of New York. He patted the console ruelfully. 'We'll go back and check it out properly sometime,' he said.

The time-vortex spat a disgruntled time machine, complete with bickering pilots and a stomping passenger, onto the Serengeti, paused for a moment, disembarked her fare, vanished and then re-materialised a few feet away. Harmony-of-the-Clear-Water stood still for only a moment, and then threw her head back and called across the plains, tail swishing, trunk curling to the open sky, looking for all the world like nothing could be more normal for a discerning elephant than being transported across the globe by a sentient police box. She turned her head once toward the TARDIS, and then marched off towards the best water-hole and into the sunset.

River and the Doctor stood in the TARDIS doorway as Harmony disappeared toward the horizon. Beyond the trees and past the mountains a doleful sun slipped through wisps of burnt orange cloud, and away to the other side of the world.

River gazed into the distance. 'That sunset is really something.'

'Is it?' he said, ignoring the sunset, and looked at her as if he was trying to make up his mind about something important. 'You won't be in the Stormcage forever,' he said. Not forever, that was something. One day she would walk those three steps across her cell, past that small washroom and big desk, take a last look at the piles of books that kept her sane, and walk out of that cell and never go back. Maybe not today, but some day.

He still had that restless look, so she decided it was time to pin him down on that at least. She took his hand. 'Where did you see me last?'

He coughed. 'Demons Run.'

'Demons run? What happens there?'

'Lots. But you, River-Pond-Melody-Song, begun-in-the-time-vortex, finally, - although you do turn up very late - are going to tell me exactly who you are.'

'I am?'

'Yes you are. And that changes everything...' He smiled shyly and threaded his fingers through hers. '…and I suppose, Melody-Pond-River-Song, I should really be thinking about getting you back…'

Back to the storm-cage: back to Peterson quaking at the airlock, and Commander Spears with his silly games, back to - let's call it what it is - prison. She leaned in close to his ear and said in a low voice, 'Sweetie, you've got a time machine. You can keep me out as long as you like and still get me back in time for roll-call…'

He grinned and raised his eye-brows. 'Yes I can.'

 **Epilogue: Demons run.**

River stood by the Gallifreyan cradle and watched the Doctor tear off into the TARDIS. She knew exactly where he was going. He was off to plant a postcard and a get-out-of-jail-free universal-molecular-rotator in her cell, and whisk her away for a glorious day on the frozen Thames and a steamy night on the Serengeti. He's sloping off to steal Stevie Wonder away from his studio, give a street boy the tools turn his life around and take a lonely elephant home to her family. Right now though he's left her here to mop up her poor mother and father then deliver herself dutifully back into incarceration. With a rush of wind and a wheeze the TARDIS disappeared from Demons Run. River looked thoughtfully at the empty space. There was a high price to loving the Doctor, and Rosalee was absolutely right to call him a thief. River smiled. There'll be a time, between the Stormcage and the shadows, when she can be a thief too. _I'll race you right across the universe Doctor. You watch me run!_


End file.
